


lighter than the heart

by aces



Category: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-05 18:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20493041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: Always travel lighter / than the heart, “Packing for the Future: Instructions,” by Lorna Crozier





	lighter than the heart

**Author's Note:**

> Written for glinda_penguin for the dw_femslash ficathon, hugely spoilery for the Big Finish story “Bride of Peladon.”

“I’m surprised you were able to persuade the Doctor to land you both here again,” Erimem said, running a hand up and down Peri’s arm.

“You make it sound like he actually knows how to pilot the TARDIS,” Peri answered, her own fingers tangled in Erimem’s long black hair.

“He got you back here, didn’t he?” Erimem said reasonably, and Peri had to concede she was right. “I’ve always thought he just chooses not to pilot the ship. I think he finds it more…interesting that way.”

They were lying in the Queen’s private garden, a small enclosed green space, by the fountain that occasionally splashed them if the wind blew just right. They were mostly dressed again, though Peri’s shirt remained unbuttoned and Erimem’s elaborate hair dressing had long since collapsed, long hair falling past her shoulders. Peri had always enjoyed playing with her hair.

“It certainly makes life more interesting for all of us,” Peri said at last. She leant in to kiss the former Egyptian pharaoh, and then pulled back to search Erimem’s face. “You really are happy here, aren’t you.”

Erimem smiled and framed Peri’s own face in her hands. “Oh, Peri,” she laughed, “you worry too much! I am very content here. My husband is a good and kind ruler, and I am again using what I have all my life been trained to do—be a ruler myself.”

She had ordered the servants and guards without hesitation when Peri and the Doctor had appeared; Peri had seen her speaking to them all with kindness and firmness, a directness that Peri had sometimes glimpsed in her before but which now flourished freely. “And your kids?” Peri asked.

Erimem smiled. “They’re a joy and a complete and utter aggravation,” she said frankly. “And they both like to cause as much trouble as they possibly can. Usually in an attempt to one-up each other, I think.” A frown drifted across her face, the way a summer cloud would momentarily darken the sun. “And you?” she asked, her turn to search Peri’s face closely. “Are you still happy traveling with the Doctor?”

Peri smiled, a little half-heartedly, and turned to lie on her back and stare up at the clear sky overhead. “It’s different,” she admitted. “We’re both—we’re both quieter. I think we’re still getting used to it just being the two of us again.” She cleared her throat self-consciously. “I know it’s been a few years for you since you stayed on Peladon, obviously, but, uh, it’s only been a few weeks for the Doctor and I…”

Erimem rolled onto her stomach, the better to muffle her giggles in the blanket. Peri turned her head to glare at her friend. “Oh, come on! I am sure were our positions reversed you’d—you’d be wanting to check up on me too!”

The queen of Peladon stopped laughing. She didn’t raise her face, but she took Peri’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

They had never talked about their relationship, and the occasional physical turn it took. Erimem was her best friend, her confidant, her support when the Doctor was being aggravating again, and sometimes—sometimes they went to each other’s bed and didn’t leave for a while.

Were they guys, Peri might call it friends with benefits or something. But traveling with the Doctor—and with his library of books—sometimes made her think she needed to rethink all her labels and preconceptions anyway.

And she still wasn’t quite sure what Erimem thought about it all—love, relationships, gender, sex, all of it—anyway. Erimem could be very…opaque, when she wanted.

“I didn’t want to show up this late, like this,” Peri said quietly after a moment, her hand still in Erimem’s. “I wanted to show up just a few weeks after your wedding, a couple months tops. Just to make sure you still—you still wanted to do this.”

“Have you ever doubted my decisions before, Peri?” Erimem asked, resting her chin on her arm and peeking up at her friend.

“All the time,” Peri said with a quick, teasing smile, but Erimem remained serious and Peri dropped the grin, looking back up at the sky again. “I—I worried. After Dracula, after being so sick with that poison, after…everything. I wanted—” She stopped, took a deep breath, kept staring straight up at the sky because it was easier to say the words to the world rather than to her friend. “I wanted to give you an out in case you needed it.”

Silence, but for the cascading water in the fountain and the light breeze playing about them over the grass and hedges and flowering plants. Then Erimem leaned over and kissed Peri on the corner of her mouth.

“You are a true, dear friend, Peri Brown,” Erimem said quietly, “and I will always love you for that.”

Peri turned and hugged Erimem, burying her face in Erimem’s neck. “I’m glad you’re happy,” she said in Erimem’s ear, and then she released her.

They spoke of court life and politics on Peladon, of Peri’s and the Doctor’s latest adventures, of Erimem’s little girl and littler boy, of memories together aboard the TARDIS. “Oh, he knows,” Erimem said in surprise after casually letting slip that Pelleas knew about a particularly embarrassing moment involving Peri, Erimem, the TARDIS swimming pool, and the Doctor. “Of course he knows; I had to tell him I was not a virgin before he married me. It would not have been fair otherwise.”

“And did he tell you if he was a virgin or not?” Peri countered, blushing a bit and hoping she wouldn’t have to run into Pelleas again before she and the Doctor left. His greeting _had_ seemed a trifle effusive, and he had been awfully willing to leave them alone together for several hours. She’d thought at the time it was just because he was glad for his wife to catch up with an old friend.

And maybe that really was all it was, Peri told herself reprovingly. Pelleas had always seemed like a pretty nice guy, for being a king.

“Of course,” Erimem said in surprise. “We were both very frank about the entire matter. And no,” she added before Peri could so much as open her mouth, “I am not going to tell you if he was or not. That is between him and me and nobody else.”

“Oh, but you can tell him about _our_ sexual exploits?!” Peri blushed. “That hardly seems fair!”

“I am the Queen of Peladon,” Erimem declared, sitting up, hair falling deliciously all around her, “I don’t have to be fair.”

She held the pose for a moment before Peri attacked, throwing herself over Erimem and tickling wherever she could reach. Erimem squeaked and started laughing, trying to grab Peri’s hands and only flailing instead. “Now who’s not playing fair?” she gasped.

“Say uncle,” Peri said, fingers everywhere.

“I will never admit defeat!” Erimem said.

“Say it!”

“Never!”

“_Say it_!”

“Uncle!” Erimem shouted at last, head thrown back to the sky. “Fine, alright, I’ll say it, _UNCLE_!”

Peri fell back onto the blanket next to the other woman, laughing and breathing about as quickly and hard as Erimem. “I’ve missed this,” she said while she still had the courage, while they were both happy, before the moment was gone. “Oh, Erimem, I’ve missed you so much. I can’t talk to the Doctor like this, or laugh like this—can you imagine tickling him? It would go down like a ton of bricks. I’m happy for you,” she went on before Erimem could interrupt, before she lost all her courage, “I’m really, really happy that you have found your place in the universe and you are content in it and I can tell it fits you and that you are doing just exactly what you were always meant to be doing, but, oh, Erimem, I _missed_ you. That’s why I badgered the Doctor into coming back, nothing less selfish than that.” She turned onto her side to face Erimem again. “Forgive me?”

Erimem smiled at her, a gentler and wiser smile than the one she’d had a few years ago, before taking her place as the Queen of Peladon. “Of course I forgive you, Peri. Don’t you think I missed you too?” She took Peri’s hand again and kissed her again, deeply and for a long time, pausing to take a breath when needed.

Finally, finally, they parted. Erimem brushed the hair away from Peri’s eyes; Peri had seen her make the same gesture with her daughter a few hours previously when telling her to go to her lessons like a good princess. “We should probably go track down the boys,” Peri sighed, sitting up and looking around the quiet, isolated garden. It was hedged in on all four sides, away from the castle and main grounds, truly as private a place as could be wished for royalty. “Make sure they haven’t started a war or something in our absence.”

“Neither the Doctor nor Pelleas are likely to start wars,” Erimem pointed out primly, also sitting up and brushing out her hair in order to pull it up into a more queenly twist. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peri said, “I still don’t trust either of them.” She caught Erimem’s eye and then smiled, and Erimem laughed. She reached over to button Peri’s shirt, and Peri stilled obediently, closing her eyes to the delicate brush of Erimem’s fingers on her skin through fabric.

They stood up, folded the blanket, started walking for the garden gate, holding hands loosely, Peri idly swinging their arms back and forth. “I’m glad we came back,” she said. “I hope you are too.”

Erimem squeezed her intertwined hand. “Of course I am, Peri,” she said. “How could you ever doubt that? You are still the dearest friend I have ever had and—” She turned away for a moment, but Peri saw the sparkle of unshed tears in her eyes and she immediately gave the other woman a hug. “Thank you for visiting me,” Erimem said at last, in her ear.

Peri thumbed under Erimem’s eyes, gently wiping the skin dry, and gave her a wide smile. “Just call on us, day or night, ma’am,” she said, and even if Erimem did not quite get the reference she laughed.

They walked back to the castle in silence, enjoying the beauty of the day as it faded into night. They found servants, children, king, and the Doctor waiting for them, along with dinner, and that night they all made merry, Peri teaching the children how to do the moonwalk and other such novel dances, the Doctor catching up with Erimem over a very good wine, the king flitting from group to group as other duties permitted, and Peri found she could in fact look him in the eye without blushing. The royals insisted that Peri and the Doctor stay the night, and after breakfast the next day the travelers took their leave.

“Lovely to see you, Erimem,” the Doctor said, giving Erimem a hug, a much less awkward move on his part than Peri expected. “And you, Pelleas.” He shook the Peladonian king’s hand, and then he smiled at them both. “You have done well for yourselves, and for your world.”

“Yeah,” Peri said, hugging the king (earning an “oomph” from him in surprise) and then Erimem. “Good job, guys.”

“It was wonderful to see you both again,” Pelleas said. “Truly.”

“Yes,” Erimem smiled at her old companions both, “truly.”

“Well?” the Doctor said as they ambled back to the TARDIS. “Are you happy now?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Peri rolled her eyes, “I am now satisfied that everything is okay. Thank you for indulging my whims.”

“That is quite alright.” The Doctor sounded magnanimous. He paused, including in his stride, hands in his candy-striped trouser pockets. “The truth is,” he admitted at last, “I’m glad you kept suggesting it. I, er, rather felt the need to check up on Erimem myself.”

“Ah-ha!” Peri punched the Doctor in the arm. He winced. “I knew you were worried too!”

“Was that really necessary?” the Doctor asked, rubbing his arm.

“Sorry,” Peri said.

“Apology accepted,” the Doctor said as they stopped in front of the TARDIS. He fished the key out of his pocket. “I’m glad you’re not worried anymore, Peri,” he added as he held the door open for her.

Peri smiled up at him. “You too,” she said and ducked past him inside the time machine. The Doctor shook his head, fondly, and took one last look around the forest before following his companion.

The TARDIS faded away, leaving behind only the sounds of the breeze and cascading water from a fountain on a sunny day.


End file.
